


Blessed Silence

by SSJandTechno



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Abduction, F/M, IDK if this counts as body horror, Implied Sexual Content, Mild Gore, Muteness, very mildly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24062767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SSJandTechno/pseuds/SSJandTechno
Summary: "The Witcher staggered upright, eyes black with mutagen, white hair streaked red on one side. He picked up his sword and started forwards, shaking broken glass out of his hair. On the ground before him lay a man, his shorter, darker hair also marked with blood, but this man was stirring. The Witcher turned him over with a foot. The man’s sky blue eyes locked on to the Witcher’s.“Geralt.” The man mouthed, though no sound came out. He looked relieved.The Witcher set a foot on the man’s chest and reversed his grip on the sword.The man’s boyish face contorted in alarm and he made to struggle out from under The Witcher’s foot. He shook his head frantically, mouthing at the Witcher to stop.The Witcher drove the point of his sword between the man’s ribs."When an assailant leaves Jaskier mute, Geralt quickly realises that the bard is beyond his help. Even having persuaded a sorceress to help, things get more complicated at every turn, drawing all three of them in to mortal danger.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 59





	1. Chapter 1

The Witcher staggered upright, eyes black with mutagen, white hair streaked red on one side. He picked up his sword and started forwards, shaking broken glass out of his hair. On the ground before him lay a man, his shorter, darker hair also marked with blood, but this man was stirring. The Witcher turned him over with a foot. The man’s sky blue eyes locked on to the Witcher’s.  
“Geralt.” The man mouthed, though no sound came out. He looked relieved.  
The Witcher set a foot on the man’s chest and reversed his grip on the sword.  
The man’s boyish face contorted in alarm and he made to struggle out from under The Witcher’s foot. He shook his head frantically, mouthing at the Witcher to stop.  
The Witcher drove the point of his sword between the man’s ribs.  
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

One week earlier

“There you go.” Jaskier thumped a tankard down in front of Geralt and sat down opposite him. Geralt took a draft. “I’ve ordered food, they’ll bring it over.”  
“Hm.”  
Jaskier drew breath slowly and lowered his voice. “Geralt, are you sure you don’t want me to find someone to look at you?” Last night had been… challenging. They’d been woken by Roach squealing and woken to see a bear making for her. Geralt, obviously, had protected his horse. He’d fought a bear with a sword and lived to tell the tale. He’d have got away more or less unharmed if the thing hadn’t dropped on top of him when it died. It had taken a long time and a lot of cursing to get Geralt out from under the dead bear, and Jaskier suspected he was nursing broken ribs. He was moving tentatively, he’d opted to ride rather than walk almost all day, and, even for Geralt, he was quiet.  
“I’m fine.” He looked up from the table. “Stop asking. Nothing wrong with me sleep won’t heal.”  
Jaskier held his gaze for a long moment, looking for a lie behind Geralt’s eyes.  
“Okay.”  
Food came and went. Geralt bolted his food in silence, Jaskier mulled over a bit of his ballad about Pavetta and Duny that wasn’t sitting right. Why had he decided to write the thing in Brokillian Metre? Because, he answered himself, this wasn’t an anthem or a drinking song. This was a royal love story, and to do that in anything other than Brokillian or Tetrakaimetre was an insult to Queen Calanthe’s house.  
Geralt stood up almost as soon as he’d finished.  
“You going to bed?”  
“Hm.”  
It wasn’t dark. It was barely even sunset. “Okay. I’m staying up.” Geralt nodded once and walked away - limped away.

Jaskier sat a while, fixed one problem with the ballad and created another, before a mug landed before him, and a body beside him. He startled. A young woman with auburn hair had seated herself next to him. Jaskier looked at her. He had time to take in verdant eyes, ivory skin and a bright, even smile before she said:  
“Why does a young man with a lute on his back sit quietly in a corner? Haven’t you a use for that?”  
Jaskier tilted his head. “Why does a young lady bring such a boring young man a drink?” He took a sip of what she’d brought him and took in her hands. No wedding ring, but what might have been a dent from wearing one. So either she was newly not married, or pretending she was. And she had such pretty hands. Part of him just wanted to take them in his and caress them, but that was probably too far too fast.  
“I heard that a bard had come by and didn’t want to miss my chance to hear him.” She took a mouthful of her own drink. “Why is he mute?”  
In truth, Jaskier had tried a little about an hour ago, but he’d been unusually badly received, so had shut up. But he wasn’t about to tell this woman that. “Even when a thing is as sweetmeats to you, don’t you find that there are days that… There is no passion. Not tonight. Not to sing in a crowded bar. And to perform without passion is… an insult.”  
She gave him a look of pity. “What has stolen your passion, bard?”  
“Jaskier.” He offered. “Jaskier the Nightingale.”  
“Inga.” She replied, offering one of her pretty hands to him. He kissed it. She smiled. “So what was it?”  
Jaskier sighed. “Stifling company. My companion is, at times, an excellent muse, but melancholy takes him sometimes-” Mostly when he’d been sat on by a bear, but a poet is allowed his licence. “and once it takes him, it usually affects me.”  
“So might brighter company restore you?”  
Jaskier drew a breath slowly. “It very well might.”  
“Then will you walk with me?”  
Jaskier hopped, obligingly, to his feet.

Geralt stripped and looked down himself. Not as bad as he’d feared. He was bruised to hell, but not in a way that suggested he had a belly full of free blood. He sat down and started poking the bruises, gritting his teeth. It was just his ribs, his last couple of right ribs. Breathing didn’t hurt enough that he thought they were broken, not any more. He’d been lucky. Very lucky. He’d got into a fight with a bear with just a sword and he was only bruised. And he wouldn’t even have been bruised if he just hadn’t let the blasted thing fall down dead on top of him. What Vesemir would have said…  
He’d be fine. He didn’t need Swallow, he didn’t need a healer. He’d feel a lot better if he just put his head down for ten hours.

Inga led Jaskier away from the cluster of buildings. He followed slowly, he’d rather stay in earshot of the village, but Inga didn’t seem to be hurrying. She stopped under a tree and turned to him suddenly.  
“Will you sing for me now, Jaskier?”  
He swung his lute to his front. “What would you like me to sing?”  
She smiled. “Anything. You choose.”  
Jaskier drew a breath slowly, pushing air deep down into his torso.  
“Yviss, m’evelien vente caelm en tell  
Elaine Ettariel  
Aep cor me lode deith ess’viel  
Yn blathe que me darienn…”  
One of a small number of songs Jaskier knew in Eldar Speech. A song of adoration, and he performed it. Inga was to him, at this moment, Elaine Ettariel, and she should feel that. She stepped closer as he sang. She set a hand on his shoulder as he finished the first verse.  
“I’m sorry, but this isn’t personal.” Her voice was suddenly clipped and cold, not the soft brogue with which she’d asked him to sing. Her visage changed like roiling water. She dropped three inches in height, her skin darkened several shades, her wild, auburn hair boiled back to sleek nut brown, bound tightly behind her head, her green eyes went dark brown and were suddenly quite emotionless. Jaskier stepped back instinctively. What was happening? What was she-?  
She grasped his throat with tiny, iron fingers. He grabbed for her wrist without thinking.  
“Ollunbo.”

Jaskier knew nothing more.


	2. Chapter 2

Geralt woke. It was dawn. He could hear birdsong. He stretched his back experimentally. It didn’t really hurt, not until he reached nearly the limit of his movement. Nothing broken then. He relaxed again and lay listening. He could hear the inn coming to life below, food would follow in an hour or two, he could hear two children driving something through the street below. A dog barked somewhere further off.  
He couldn’t hear Jaskier breathing. He lifted his head. The bed on the other side of the room was empty and undisturbed. The bard hadn’t come in last night. Good for him.  
Geralt folded his hands behind his head. He could take another hour of sleep. Jaskier would come in whenever he came in, or whenever a husband came home and chased him off.

Geralt rose, made his way down the stairs, and ate. Still no sign of Jaskier. The girl behind the bar didn’t know anything. Well, he could wait. He wasn’t on his way anywhere in particular.  
He packed up, then went out to the stables. He took Roach to water and set about grooming her, musing aloud about blade oils.

Still no sign of Jaskier.

He picketed Roach to graze by the side of the road – she could take her rest – and went to his swords. He cleaned the hilts to the best of his ability and flushed the scabbards as fully as he could.

This was getting stupid. Jaskier would get a piece of his mind whenever he did finally show himself.

He went to sword drill, ignoring the stares it attracted. By the time he’d been told to move along by farmers twice, he was starting to worry.  
Guard stances. Each held for twenty heartbeats, left and right, then sequences until his shoulders were burning.

This was too long.  
“Jaskier!”

.  
Hands on him, a voice close. Jaskier woke. Yellow wolf’s eyes above him. Geralt against a clear sky.  
“Are you alright? Can you move?”  
Jaskier’s head hurt. He shook it and made to sit up. Geralt put an arm at his back. He’d been flat on the ground, he was cold and stiff. He looked around. He was exactly where he had been, under this tree with Inga. Inga. What the hell had that turned into? He still had his lute, thankfully, and he could feel his coin purse.  
“I’m al-” He couldn’t hear himself. He clicked his fingers next to his ear. He heard that. He touched his hand to his throat.  
“Jaskier?”  
He made to hum a middle A. Nothing. No sound, no telling tremor under his fingers. What had she done to him? He scrabbled at his skin. There was no swelling, no pain, no blood in his throat. There was just no voice. What had she done to him?  
Geralt grabbed his hands. “Jaskier, stop. Tell me what’s wrong.”  
Jaskier looked up at Geralt, feeling his breaths coming faster and faster. “I can’t.” But there was no sound.  
“What?”  
“I can’t.” Jaskier repeated, slower.  
He saw Geralt realise. “Ah, fuck.”  
The woman had taken his voice. His voice. He was a bard, he lived and died by his voice. Why hadn’t she just killed him? That would have been kinder. Why him? Why out of all the people on the continent? She’d said ‘not personal’. Why pick on a bard? He was nothing without a voice. Nothing. She would have done better to kill him.  
“Hey.” Jaskier looked back up at Geralt. “I need you to tell me what happened. I need you to figure out how.”  
Jaskier’s first thought was interpretive dance. Some part of him, the jester, was still fighting. He snorted at the idea. The jester bowed at the praise and expanded the joke, imagining mimes for the performance. The snort grew into giggling. Soundless giggling. This wasn’t funny. Nothing about this was funny. He was a husk of a man, and still he laughed. Geralt was staring at him with incomprehension. That only made it harder to fight it. And why fight it? What could he do but laugh.  
Of course it passed. And when it did, and his stomach was too sore to continue laughing, the despond it left in its wake seemed all the darker. What was he now?  
He reached back for his notebook and started to outline the story for Geralt.  
Geralt read as fast as Jaskier could write, then.  
“Here? This all happened here?”  
Jaskier nodded.  
Geralt started to scent like a hound, tracing the ground for five paces in each direction, taking short, shallow breaths through his nose.  
“Not a good scent.” Two more breaths. “She smells like a human, but…” Two more breaths. “That’s… that’s deer musk. Did you notice a perfume?” Jaskier shook his head. “Did she touch you?” Jaskier pointed to his shoulder. Geralt, without any warning, buried his face in the shoulder of Jaskier’s doublet. As Geralt drew back, Jaskier caught it too. “Myrrh.” Geralt started walking, further away from the village, going slowly, still moving like a scenting hound.  
He walked maybe thirty paces before “Fuck.” He stopped, looking at the ground. Jaskier looked too. Fallen leaves. It was autumn. There were fallen leaves everywhere. “Portal.” He pointed along a strip of ground, maybe six paces across, that was completely clear of leaves. Around it, leaves were banked oddly. It was obvious now he saw it. Geralt started scenting again, walking wide arcs beyond the portal, looking for a trail. He didn’t have her. If he couldn’t smell her beyond the portal, she’d portalled out. 

Geralt didn’t give up quickly, he paced for what felt like several minutes, scenting the air, the ground, but eventually he straightened and sighed heavily. This was beyond him. Geralt couldn’t track a creature that portalled. And, presumably, his voice was lost with her.  
“Of course it’s a witch.” Geralt said, as though to himself. “Whenever anything like this happens there’s a witch involved.” He looked up at Jaskier. “Portals can be tracked, but I can’t do it. Go and pack up. We need someone who can.” Jaskier just looked at him and sighed. Part of him suspected that this was a lost cause, that Geralt was lying to keep him from utter despair. “Go on.” Geralt repeated. “The trail’s already half a day old. Get moving.”

Whether out of hope, or fear of what would come if he had nothing to do, Jaskier obeyed. Geralt set a hard pace. Jaskier wouldn’t have been able to hold a conversation walking this fast anyway, there was no prospect of writing questions down for Geralt, like where they were going, or whose help Geralt was going to try to enlist. He was trying not to listen to the voice so helpfully reminding him what had happened the last time he and Geralt had needed help with a magic problem.  
Geralt had lived a very long time. He probably knew other magic people. Mousesack, the Cintran druid, for one. That would be fine. Jaskier would have no problem going to Mousesack, he’d seemed perfectly nice.

Geralt turned off the road as night began to settle. He dumped his pack and set Roach grazing.  
“Get a fire going. I’m going for wood and water.”  
Silence sat heavier now they’d stopped. Jaskier wasn’t sure if it was better or worse for Geralt being so silent by habit. Usually Jaskier would take out his lute and play, or badger Geralt for stories.  
“When you tried to speak,” Geralt’s voice jerked Jaskier out of himself. “I heard… some of it. Not whole words, but… You’re not totally mute. What can you do?”  
Jaskier gasped a breath, as though he only had an eighth note between long phrases. He heard the edge of that. He started to play with his breath, he still had all that control, just… he couldn’t get any sound out of his voice. Any. Which was the rub. He’d run his voice into the ground once, singing Hemeron’s part in The Circle of Elessia against a noisy room. His teacher had laughed at him and told him to not speak for five days, that that would heal him. But that hadn’t quite been this bad. He’d still been able to whisper coherently, just about, not the collection of clicks and hisses he was coming out with now. And he’d known why. He’d overworked his voice and, like a day’s hard riding to unaccustomed legs, it had schooled him for it. And, like sore legs, he’d known it would heal. This was different.  
“Can you whistle?” Geralt asked.  
Jaskier tried. But he could. To his surprise, he could. He smiled and started a tune up.  
Geralt gave him a very unimpressed stare. “Of all the tunes on the Continent, you choose that?” 

.  
Geralt heard movement and woke with a start. He sat up. Jaskier was kicking about like a landed fish in his bedroll. Geralt dragged himself up.  
“Jaskier?”  
Jaskier didn’t respond. Geralt padded over to him. He was still thrashing about and gasping. Geralt crouched down. Jaskier’s eyes were closed and he was… he was asleep, not convulsing. This was a nightmare.  
He took Jaskier by the shoulders. “Enough now. Wake up.” Geralt shook him gently. “Jaskier, wake up.” It sounded as though Jaskier had tried to call out. He clawed at his throat. Geralt took his hands. “Stop that.”  
After a moment, Jaskier stopped struggling. Geralt relaxed. As soon as he did, Jaskier turned and grabbed the front of Geralt’s shirt with both hands. He was still gasping. Geralt could feel him shaking now.  
Geralt stayed still for a long moment. Under any other circumstances, he’d have pushed Jaskier off, but somehow he didn’t. He took part of Jaskier’s weight on his right arm, more so that Jaskier wouldn’t tear his shirt than anything else.  
“Dream?”  
Jaskier nodded, not looking at Geralt.  
“What?”  
Jaskier looked up at Geralt, let go of his shirt, and closed his hands around his own throat. It couldn’t have been plainer if he had spoken.  
Geralt sighed. “This isn’t the djinn, Jaskier. You’re not dying.” Jaskier nodded. “We’re going to fix this, or find someone who can.” Jaskier nodded less clearly.


	3. Chapter 3

Geralt didn’t let up the next day. Jaskier took a second while they were packing up to write out “How far?” to which Geralt replied:  
“We’ll get there today.”  
He seemed more than determined. Jaskier’s feet and legs ached by noon, and he’d been on the road with Geralt all summer. They didn’t stop long to eat or drink. When the sun started to set, Jaskier whistled for Geralt’s attention and gestured off the road.  
Geralt shook his head. “No, we’ll get there tonight.”  
As dusk started to set in, Jaskier did it again.  
“We will get there tonight. It can’t be more than another hour.”

Jaskier’s sight started to fail him. He started to stumble on the road behind Geralt. When he tripped and fell headlong into Geralt’s back, Geralt stopped and sighed heavily.  
“Alright, this once. It’s just practical. This once.” He turned and offered one of Roach’s stirrups to Jaskier. Jaskier stood staring at him. “Stand, Roach. Up you get.” Jaskier still stood staring at him in the half-dark. “It’s faster this way. Get up, or don’t.” Jaskier decided that the offer wasn’t likely to be repeated again, so groped for the stirrup and mounted up. “This once.” Geralt repeated firmly. Jaskier nodded. “Roach, trot on.”

So they went, in darkness now so deep Jaskier couldn’t see the road. He could see and feel the horse – it had been a very long time since he’d ridden – and see Geralt’s grey head as he ran beside Roach. This was not very comfortable, but it was definitely faster. Jaskier could hear Geralt breathing, slow and regular, four strides to the breath. A slim crescent moon rose as the dark shapes around them began to change. Hedges started to appear – was that a hay rick? They were nearing some sort of civilisation.  
There! Lights. Someone had a fire down there. Geralt didn’t head for the lights though. He turned across and up the hill, and slowed Roach to a walk. He murmured thanks to her, then started scenting. Jaskier wanted to ask what he was scenting for; he couldn’t smell anything other than the horse.  
Geralt stopped beside a rib-high wall. “Off. You can’t go riding a horse into somebody’s garden.”  
Jaskier obligingly, carefully, dismounted. At this point, he’d be glad of a bed, whether or not there was help here. Geralt tied Roach to a gate, which Jaskier hadn’t seen until that moment.

Then Jaskier could smell something. Fruit, slightly off fruit. Fruit that had fallen in season and just been left. There were bushes all about this garden, none much above head height. There was a building to their left, quite a big building, with light inside. And flowers. Jaskier could smell flowers. In Autumn.

Geralt approached the front door and knocked. As he did, Jaskier realised what he was smelling. Oh no. No. No, there was no way this could possibly end well.  
Jaskier pushed his breath out in two sharp hisses. Geralt looked at him. Jaskier shook his head violently, stepping back.  
“Can you think of another magic user nearer than Cintra who would even give us the time of day?”  
Jaskier hesitated.  
The door opened a head’s width. An old woman appeared, clad in a cloth cap and apron. Not who he’d expected.  
“Yes?”  
“Yennefer of Vengeberg lives here?”   
“Who’s asking?”  
“Tell her The White Wolf came back.”  
There was movement behind the door. Jaskier smelled her before he saw her. Lilac and gooseberries. He couldn’t run off in to the dark alone, that would be really stupid, but he was also very reluctant to go anywhere near this particular witch ever again. She was speaking to Geralt.  
“…expect to see you again. What did you bring him for?” She glanced at Jaskier. “Voyeurism?”  
“We need a sorceress.” Geralt said. “To catch a sorceress.”  
Yennefer raised her eyebrows. “Well, I suppose it’s a little more logical than using a Djinn for insomnia.”  
“You lecture me about appropriate uses for Djinn? I didn’t try to get it to live in my guts.”  
There was a brief silence. “Are you coming in, then?” She stepped back, Geralt followed her through the door. Jaskier hesitated, then followed. He wasn’t alone with her, she’d probably rather bother Geralt than him, and, if Geralt was right and she could help, he’d better shut up and put up. He followed.  
“Ursula,” Yennefer was calling. “get something for these two to eat and drink. Speed over finesse.” Jaskier found himself behind Geralt in a large room with a fire at one end and a long, rough table stretching down it. Yennefer sat down at one end of the table. Geralt sat next to her, Jaskier sat the other side of Geralt. “So why do you want to catch a sorceress?”  
Geralt looked at Jaskier, who took out the book he’d written his explanation for Geralt in. Geralt handed the book to Yennefer, who looked surprised, but took it and read it.  
She smiled after a few seconds. “’Her visage changed like roiling water’, this could only have been written by a bard.” She looked up. “Then what happened?”  
“I found him the next morning, passed out where he fell, and mute.” Yennefer leant back from the table, tilting her head, her mouth slightly open. She was terrifying, yes, but sexy enough that it was slightly uncomfortable to have her look at him like that. “I caught the woman’s scent, and tracked it to what looked like a portal scar, then her scent disappeared.”  
“What was her scent?”  
“Musk and Myrrh.”  
“That sounds like a sorceress. Drop a man with a word and portal out. Wearing Myrrh sounds like a court sorceress thing to do, it’s expensive for the sake of being expensive.” She sighed. “So the real question is why is a court sorceress roaming the country muting hapless bards?” If she was waiting for an answer, she’d wait a long time. If Geralt was your best prospect for answering a rhetorical question, you were sunk. She seemed to realise. “And what exactly she did. If it’s just a block or a stilling, a well-placed prohosiad or anisymud or some variant on that, I can probably just undo it. If not, things get harder. And I don’t think your conversation will do for payment this time, Geralt.” That raised more questions than it answered. For one, had Geralt actually paid for Yennefer to save him from the Djinn with conversation? Or was that a euphemism?  
Geralt sighed. “Figure out how big a job it is, figure out what you want, then we can talk.”  
Yennefer rolled her shoulders back. “Fundamental seeing spells then. Is he completely mute or..?”  
Jaskier whistled an arpeggio.  
Yennefer frowned. “Anything else?”  
Jaskier started through the small repertoire of sounds he could still make.  
Yennefer’s frown deepened. “That’s disappointing.”  
Jaskier looked at her questioningly, so did Geralt.  
“It’s not a block. That would have been a very easy fix.” She kicked her legs off whatever she’d been resting them on under the table and stood up. “Outside, both of you. Spell was cast outside, so we go outside to look for it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should anyone find it amusing, 'conversation' was a euphemism in Britain in the 1500s.  
> Reviews always welcome


	4. Chapter 4

She strode out into the night. Geralt followed her, Jaskier followed Geralt, putting a hand on his shoulder so he didn’t walk into anything. He really couldn’t see, though he did glimpse a human form leading a horse round the side of the house. Yennefer led them maybe thirty paces away from the house, to behind a cluster of bushes. It was really, really dark. He heard rather than saw Yennefer take something from one of the plants.  
“Aspectu lumina a leuyad.” A chill ran down Jaskier’s spine. “Aspecta lumina uri leuyad.” Yennefer’s silhouette turned back to face them. A mark was shining on her forehead, like a third eye, like an echo of the moon. That was freaky.

She crossed the distance to him in two paces. That light was almost all he could see now, and… were her eyes glowing?  
“Open your mouth.” He obeyed, too frightened to do anything else. She took him by the jaw and stared into his mouth. He could feel her breath on his neck. She tsked softly and pushed his chin up so he was looking at the sky. He felt her cold fingers playing over his neck. “Aspecta.” He heard two of her breaths before “There. Do you see that?” There was a moment’s silence. “That” she ran finger and thumb down his neck on opposite sides, from the point of his jaw to nearly where his collar bones met “is my healing spell. That” She poked the middle of his neck, nearly hard enough to make him cough. “isn’t. Very fine lines, very precise casting, you wouldn’t want to do this on a struggling man, that’s why she knocked him down.” She turned his head to the side with one hand and sighed. “Disappointing.” That didn’t sound good. Jaskier wasn’t sure how easily Yennefer expressed anger or frustration. This was bad news, no doubt about that, but did that mean difficult, or impossible, or she couldn’t reasonably demand much of a fee from them in return from fixing it? She turned and made back for the house. “Come on. It’s warmer indoors.” Geralt took Jaskier by the elbow.

“Steal.” Yennefer said simply, closing the door behind Geralt. “Your bard’s voice still exists, I’d wager it’s completely intact, but someone else has it.” Jaskier felt his jaw drop slightly. That woman had literally stolen his voice. Taken it from him to give to someone else? Or just to keep as a trophy?  
“What does anyone want with someone else’s voice?” Geralt asked.  
Yennefer raised her eyebrows. “She asked you to sing before she did it?” She asked Jaskier. Jaskier nodded. “There’s your answer. To a very small number of people, a voice like his is probably worth a lot of gold or a mighty favour.” She waited for Geralt to prompt her. Geralt didn’t. She’d learn sooner or later. “So we need to do three things: First, find the mage. Second, find out from her what she did with the voice and retrieve it. Third, put the voice back.” She sat down, waited for Geralt again. “The greatest challenge is likely to be the first. Even if we assume that this is a court mage, probably quite a young one, probably Aratuzan, there are a dozen candidates at least scattered the length of the continent – Nilfgaard to Kovir.” Geralt sat down, Jaskier followed. “There are things we can do to narrow the pool. If I can read his mind, I might be able to identify the woman; she had to drop her glamour to cast. But I need specific ingredients to do that, and time. The second should be easy enough. I’m sure a man of your skill set can think of a few ways to loosen reluctant tongues if I can bring a sorceress to bay for you. That should tell me what I’ll need to do to put the bard’s voice back in the bard, unless she’s done something really absurd with it.” She gave it a moment, but this time, at least, she didn’t really seem to expect an answer. “So for payment...”  
Jaskier had a thought. He pulled his book out and started writing.  
“Bits of my hunts.” Geralt said. “I know alchemical uses for them, I’d imagine you do too. If you give me a list, I could bring things to you over time. Some things, I’d imagine, are difficult to buy.”  
Yennefer twitched her eyebrows at him. “You’re an alchemist?”  
“Witchers are. Most of what I brew would kill most people, but when this is over I could teach you Wives Tears at least.”  
Yennefer bit the knuckle of her left index finger gently as Geralt spoke. “I can think of something you could do for me more immediately, Geralt of Rivia.” Jaskier almost felt Geralt tense. “Two nights, at my command.”  
Jaskier felt his breath catch, like a child who sees his parents drawing up battle lines. Yennefer might not have even noticed. The slight downward tilt of Geralt’s head, the slow exhale through his nose… Jaskier knew very well not to push Geralt if he looked like that. That was him choosing to bite down on his anger.  
When he spoke, his voice was quieter. “If you want to ask me to bed, ask me to bed.” Yennefer continued to stare at him calmly. “But I will not go for payment. I am not a whore. Don’t treat me like one.”  
Jaskier pushed his book to Yennefer. She read what he’d written.  
“Do you have anything you would want people to believe? Present or past, true or false, this is what bards excel at. If you teach people to sing anything for long enough, they’ll start to believe it’s true.”  
Yennefer stared at the page for a long moment. “Anything.”  
Jaskier tipped his head back and forth. There were limits.  
Yennefer took a long breath. Jaskier took the book back and wrote.  
“But I can’t promise you that every subject will make for a good song, certainly not if you insist on it being literally true. The less precise you need me to be, the better my chances of writing something that will dig into the listener’s psyche.”  
“What about a king having his wife and daughter murdered?”  
Jaskier raised his eyebrows  
“Might have to be careful, but…”  
“I’ll take that as part of my fee. As for the rest,” She looked back at Geralt, who looked less scary than he had done a minute ago. “alchemical reagents, teaching me what potions you know that you think a human could survive drinking, and let me see what you can cast and how you cast it.”  
“I won’t commit to bringing you specific reagents within a time limit, some things are hard to come by. If you ask for Ginatz’s acid, fine. Striga hearts are rare and dangerous to acquire.”  
“Ginatz’s acid I need to find the sorceress.” Yennefer said. “Gintaz’s acid, wraith dust, and a few things I’m sure I can source myself.” Wraith dust? They’d had a wraith not a month ago. Geralt’s eyes didn’t leave Yennefer’s face, one hand disappeared into his pack. He drew out a potion vial, but its contents were fine, cream coloured dust. He set it on the table before her. Yennefer picked it up and examined it.  
She seemed satisfied. She looked back at him, eyebrows slightly raised. Jaskier wondered for a heartbeat why the two of them were still dancing about. There could be no doubt as to how this would end. Yennefer’s spells, finding his voice, restoring it, those things were uncertain, but there was one point of the immediate future that was perfectly clear to Jaskier.  
“So all that remains is Ginatz’s acid.” Yennefer said. “And that, I feel, is a job for daylight. Ursula.”  
The old woman appeared again. “Your horse is picketed outside, masters. We’ve nowhere to stable her, I left her saddle bags in the back hall.” She pointed. Geralt nodded once. “Ursula, show this man to the guest room.” She gestured off-handedly to Jaskier. “He’s mute, so don’t let it worry you if he’s quiet. Then lock up.”  
Jaskier stood up, sweeping up his book and his lute. That left no doubt as to where she intended Geralt to sleep, or rather spend the night. The question was whether Geralt was sufficiently pissed off to refuse her. Jaskier, for his part, wasn’t sure which prospect would have scared him more. Ursula led him out through the door she’d come through.


	5. Chapter 5

Jaskier had been downstairs for breakfast for long enough to eat a slice of bread before Geralt appeared.  
Geralt paused on the threshold. “You okay?”  
Jaskier shrugged and reached for the book. “No different.” He’d dreamed of singing, woken up and tested his voice. He’d wanted to weep. “You?”  
“I’m fine.”  
Geralt cut himself a piece of bread while Jaskier wrote. “She didn’t eat you alive then.”  
“Doesn’t have the teeth for it.”  
Jaskier looked at Geralt for a moment. He was armoured, his swords were to hand. He clicked his fingers to ask Geralt to look at him and mouthed. “Leaving?” He pointed at the door to make sure he was clear, and tilted his head to suggest a question.  
Geralt nodded. “She says she needs Ginatz’s acid. Best place to find that is a drowner. I’m going hunting, you’re staying here.” He hadn’t accounted for that. Going to see an insane witch at Geralt’s heels was one thing. Being left alone in the house of said insane witch while Geralt went hunting was another. Something must have shown on his face. “I don’t think she’ll hurt you. Unless you goad her. She’s a handful, but she is only a woman. I should only be a few days, I’ll be faster alone.” Jaskier continued to stare at Geralt. He sighed. “The other choice is to leave. Take the ten day journey to Cintra and hope you can get past Calanthe to Mousesack, and hope he can help.” Because, of course, Calanthe would have Geralt killed on sight because of his claim to her heir, and Geralt was petrified of facing that claim. Jaskier felt so cornered. He was mute and stuck between a crazy witch and a genocidal queen’s druid. He put his head in his hands, and heard footsteps.  
“There you go.” Yennefer dropped a paper on to the table. “You can read, can’t you?”  
Geralt gave her such a look, then looked at the map. “Run north to the lake up there, or follow the river down.”  
“Your field, not mine.”  
“Your women might know, if they’re local.”  
“Ella!” Yennefer shouted. Running footfalls came from the kitchen. The girl who’d set breakfast out appeared and curtseyed. “If your mother’s up, fetch her.” How many women did Yennefer keep? The girl scampered off again. She was lame, Jaskier realised as her footsteps faded. She could run, but her steps were uneven.  
The girl, Ella, reappeared with the woman a couple of minutes later. The girl looked… eight? Ten? Ursula looked too old to be the child’s mother. It wasn’t worth the effort to write the question down.  
“Ursula, the Witcher has a question for you.”  
“I need a drowner. Are there any waters nearby that folk avoid even though they’re slow moving?”  
It took Ursula a moment to trawl through her memory, it seemed. “Down river.” She said, eventually. “I was told once that if you go far enough down river, you find waters where drowned men are restless and take the living.”  
Geralt made a face that Jaskier had named the ‘that’s not how this works, but it’s not worth the time to argue about it’ face. “How long ago?”  
“Couple of years maybe?”  
Geralt stood. “Downriver then. Can I leave what I don’t need here?”  
“Of course.” Yennefer said. Geralt went off to the packs. Yennefer turned her lilac eyes on Jaskier, who tried to keep his face fairly neutral. “So. How do you like your stories, bard?”  
Jaskier started writing. “I would like you to tell me the story twice, an hour apart. The first time, just tell it. The second time, I will stop you to ask for details when I need to.”  
Yennefer read it and nodded once. “I need to see to Ella between times.”  
Geralt came back through, swords on his back, one pannier in his hand.  
“Don’t kill each other while I’m gone.” He opened the door and walked out. Just like that. Yennefer laughed. Jaskier didn’t.  
Yennefer glanced at him. “Oh, relax. I gain nothing by hurting you.” Had he had his voice, Jaskier might have remarked that one of Yennefer’s first acts of introducing herself had been to grab him by a very sensitive piece of his anatomy, with a look in her eyes that had suggested to him that she wouldn’t have hesitated to do permanent damage. He supposed an advantage of his current predicament, certainly while dealing with Yennefer of Vengeberg, was that it stopped him from shooting his mouth off.

Geralt huffed when he got to Roach. Yennefer’s women had untacked her and done something half sensible with the tack, but they hadn’t done much else. Her water was drained and hadn’t been refreshed, the sweat marks from yesterday were still visible in places.  
“Sorry girl.” He’d tend to her himself here in future. He started rubbing the marks off her. He felt worse when he thought that the only reason that he hadn’t checked on her was that he’d been in Yennefer’s bed. He’d put his own pleasure above his horse’s basic needs.  
“Sorry Roach.” He repeated as he started tacking her up. “Hard day ahead of you. We’ve got a long way to run.”  
He started on foot, took her to water, then just walked beside her until he was satisfied she’d had long enough to loosen out. Then he pushed her.

The lame little girl cleared breakfast away and swept the table. Yennefer looked across at Jaskier. Jaskier sat and looked back at her. She was a client. She was paying him to songwrite for her. That wasn’t strange. He took commissions occasionally.  
“So.” She said. Jaskier kept his eyes on hers, not hard staring the way Geralt did, just letting her know she had his attention. He rested his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers. She waited a heartbeat. “Don’t you want your book?”  
Jaskier shook his head. He extended one finger, then touched his ears. The first time, he would just listen.  
Yennefer drew a deep breath. “The year was 1240, late winter. King Vierful was on the throne of Aedirn, and I was his court mage, and had been his father’s before. I was sent to escort Queen-”  
Jaskier wasn’t sure when it happened, but some minutes into Yennefer’s telling, his interest went from professional to genuine. It wasn’t due to The Witch’s style. She clearly had never been taught, she was artless. It wasn’t wholly due to the subject matter, though a King having his Queen and infant daughter murdered by a man with a monster at heel was… songworthy to say the least. It was disgusting. Jaskier’s real interest came from Yennefer. She stopped meeting his eyes when the Queen had turned on her, in mortal terror and desperation, presumably. When the Queen died, Yennefer stopped even glancing at Jaskier. She grew paler and turned her face away. When she buried the child in a shallow grave by the water, her words ran dry and she stared into space.  
Taking commissions for songs necessarily involved asking someone to show you their very soul. Jaskier had seen the extremity of a lot of feelings. From Yennefer, from what she’d said yesterday, he’d expected spite, vengeance, determination to blacken a name. What he hadn’t expected was pain. Pain nearing its twentieth year, but still a raw stripe across the woman’s soul. Jaskier felt he’d seen too much, in a way, and this from a woman who’d paraded herself in front of him more than half naked without seeming to care in the least.  
He might have taken someone else’s hand in that moment, but he didn’t dare. He made the first movement of getting up. She looked at him. He mouthed “Thank you,” and walked away.

“Good girl.” Geralt kept his seat deep and long, he and Roach both had to survive a lot of this, and it had been months since he’d asked this much speed of her. She was burdened as lightly as he dared – most of his provisions he’d left behind. They carried only swords, three short days of food, and a few potions in case he got into more trouble than he was expecting.  
He kept to the road nearest the water. This was still a stream, not the kind of water drowners liked. Even at this pace, it would be hours before it was even worth looking.

Jaskier had noted down Yennefer’s story after she’d finished. He was sitting in a rather handsome bay window facing South when he heard footsteps behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see Yennefer standing there.  
“Again?”  
He nodded and shuffled in the window seat to make space for her. To his surprise, she sat down. He drew his knees up to lean on them and gave her his attention, only notating when she contradicted what he’d written, which wasn’t often. She seemed to suffer less telling it the second time, people usually did. He didn’t interject. If he’d had a voice, he would have done, but it took too long just now. Instead, when she’d finished, he wrote a set of questions out. Some were factual – how many daughters were there beside the babe? Where was the journey from and to?  
Jaskier was a little more interested in the ones that weren’t.  
“What do you want to achieve here?” When Yennefer didn’t reply, he changed it to “What do you want people to believe?”  
“Believe? I want it known that Vierful was a monster who murdered his own baby and knew nothing but ambition.”  
Jaskier gave her a firm nod.  
“Can I leave you out?”  
“Why?”  
This was where preparing questions in advance was only so helpful. “If you’re trying to kill someone, why send them WITH a powerful sorceress?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“Exactly. The story is simpler, so sticks better, if you’re left out.”

“Hey.” Geralt slowed Roach to a stop beside a field in which a dozen people were harvesting. The nearest man looked up at him. “Is there any water round here that’s dangerous?”  
“We got no coin for you, Witcher. Get gone.”  
“I’m not asking for coin. I’m looking for a monster.”  
“We don’t want you here.”  
“Tell me where to find a drowner and I’ll be on my way.”  
“Not here. Get out.”  
Something small hit Geralt’s back. He looked round. There were more farmhands behind, walking closer, some stooping to the ground. One from the other side. Both groups were reaching for stones. He knew which way this was going.  
He put his heels to Roach. She squealed and kicked out as a stone hit her quarters.

Jaskier lay on his back in the sunshine. The smell of the lilacs didn’t dry his mouth out and set his heart racing as much as it had yesterday. It was easier to believe that Yennefer wouldn’t hurt him now. She’d trusted him with her pain. As much as villains in stories and operas liked to monologue to their victims before they killed them, it didn’t match Jaskier’s experience.  
He’d seen enough of her now – not physically, he’d seen more than enough of her physically the first time around – to be curious about her as a person. It was completely understandable that seeing two people you’d been charged to protect die would be traumatic. But it was the better part of twenty years ago. He would have expected that after twenty years, she would have been able to tell the story without going vacant like that. Unless she’d never told anyone before. Unless she’d just bottled up her grief, the way Geralt seemed to.  
Maybe that was it. Maybe Yennefer was so friendless that she had never found anybody to tell. But why not shout it from the rooftops? She was a ronin mage, why not post it on notice boards about the North and portal away? She’d be extremely difficult to link to the story, and even more difficult to catch.  
So did this link to other, older pain? Was there something else deeper that this made Yennefer remember?


	6. Chapter 6

Geralt left the fire burning and lay down on his back, still fully armoured. Roach was picketed close by, grazing. He hadn’t made himself too comfortable. He didn’t want to sleep too long. He had work to do. Tomorrow’s ride would be slower. Two rivers had merged and the land was flatter here. He could believe he’d find a drowner somewhere.

“Master bard?” There was a tap at the door. Jaskier drew breath to invite the tapper in, then stopped himself. Just like yesterday, he’d kind of forgotten his curse when he’d first woken up. He opened the door. The lame little girl was standing there. He gestured to give her permission to speak. “Breakfast is ready.”  
Jaskier nodded. The girl turned to walk away. Jaskier tapped her on the head. She turned back. Jaskier took a knee and beckoned her closer. He stared intently at her left ear. She took a step towards him, uncertain. He reached for her and drew a penny from behind her ear. He gave it an approving nod as he took it in to her line of sight.  
She clapped both hands over her mouth and gasped. He offered the penny to her.  
“You’re magic!” Jaskier stood up and bowed. He had been told once that palm magic worked better if you didn’t speak, he rarely had the discipline. “Just like Mistress Yennefer!” He smiled. Country children were so easy to impress. He followed her down the stairs.  
God, but that felt good.

Geralt trotted Roach along the river bank, close enough that he could see what the water was like. It was too fast for drowners here. He’d seen a few promising pools, got in to one of them up to his waist, but nothing so far.  
He had to keep going. He could not and would not give up. He would not return empty handed.

Jaskier was sitting in the garden again. He’d declined to hear Yennefer’s second story yet. He was curious, very curious, but he thought it better not to give the stories a chance to tangle up in his head. The difficulty he was having was writing music that he couldn’t sing. His usual technique was just to start making noise until something sounded right. That was difficult just now. He usually lyriced and set tune at the same time, but that wasn’t possible just now. He had a rough outline for the shape of the story: blacken the King, whiten the Queen and the children; the mage and the beast were just a force. He had a mind to set it like a lost love ballad, so that the King’s actions came as a shock - they were shocking - and drop back to something like a marching chant for the attack. That would give him ternary form and allow him to emphasise the contrast between the King and the Queen. But did he risk making it too complicated to spread the way Toss a Coin had?  
How he wished he could sing. He could pick a melody out on his lute, yes, but if he did that, he couldn’t block chords, and his voice was so much faster, so much more supple than the lute. When he had his voice.  
He flopped onto his back. Almost without meaning to, his hands wandered to the lute as it lay across him. His left hand stretched itself into an extended minor E. His right hand started at the strings: thumb two three one thumb three. No, that was wrong. Hammer on in the left hand, fourth string. He started again. He hadn’t done this for ages. What was he playing?  
It took him a few bars to realise. This was ‘To the fair for me’. He’d learned the lute part virtuoso decades ago. He hadn’t played it in years, possibly not since he’d had Filavandrels’ lute. And she was a worthy instrument to play it on. He closed his eyes. He’d only confuse himself if he looked. The basis of the left hand was easy enough: extended minor E, extended D, resting, then hanging, then resting again, full G, extended minor E again… No more than five fundamental shapes in total, the skill came in the patterning. The jumping to extra notes so that picking the sung line out on the strings was possible. He usually didn’t bother. Singing paid better than virtuoso lute most of the time. But now there was only the lute, so he gave himself to her.  
He slowed his breathing; in for one bar, out for one bar. The world collapsed in around him. There was only him and the lute, and he was only hands and breath. No ground, no sky, no voice, no mind, or only enough to notice when a hand erred and correct it. He went beyond the four verses. There was no singer to run out of words. He got braver, he added the counter melody. He lost count of verses. Did it matter?

Geralt crouched by the edge of the water and breathed deeply. He could almost smell them. No. Not drowners, their waste. So he was downstream of them. So he’d gone right past them. But he had to be close. And just a few paces upriver, there, the stripped carcass of a small animal, maybe a rabbit. He coaxed it free with the tip of his sword. Yes, this looked like a rabbit’s ribs. Geralt dropped it. Not unique to drowners, but combined with that smell…  
He should go on the other side of the river.  
“Come on Roach.”  
He took her upstream very slowly, he was on foot now, scenting the air, the ground, the water, looking for their tracks. He needed to keep his wits about him. One drowner wasn’t a problem, but if two of them came up directly under Roach, they would be.

“Can I see what you have?” Yennefer asked as Ella took their plates away. Jaskier hesitated, then drew out the book.  
He wrote “Not finished” at the top of the page and handed it to her, hoping she’d have the manners not to go trawling through it. There were things in there he’d rather she didn’t see. The song sprawled across two and a half pages, Yennefer read it slowly twice, with a carefully neutral expression on her face.  
“I wouldn’t say that the older daughters were particularly pretty.” She closed the book and passed it back to Jaskier. “And I told you that Kalis didn’t die lying over her baby.”  
Jaskier opened the book again. “It doesn’t matter. You asked me to blacken The King.”  
“This isn’t true, though.”  
“The whiter Kalis and the daughters, the blacker Vierful becomes. It’s worse to kill a good person than a bad person. If Kalis is brave and selfless at the last, and dies trying to protect the child, Vierful is worse than a murderer. How much of Toss a Coin do you think is literally true?”  
Yennefer thought about it for a second. “I expected The White Wolf to look less human than he does.”  
“Respect doesn’t make history. Neither does truth. What makes history is stories. If you want Vierful vilified” He ought to be able to make use of how similar those words sounded. It hadn’t occurred to him before. “this is how.”

Geralt stood knee deep in the water, silent and still, listening. He held a fool’s guard until he felt the ground beneath his feet vibrate. He started backwards, big, heavy strides, letting it feel him. Then the ground under his feet bubbled and burst open. Geralt caught himself and recovered to face the drowner. Only one. More would come. He had to do this quickly. He pushed deep into its guard, letting it batter at his armour, and drew his sword across its stomach. It screamed and raked his face with its claws. That occupied its hands. Geralt closed his eyes and grabbed for its face with his left hand, then took his sword to where the neck ought to be. It stopped screaming.  
Geralt turned and ran, blinking blood out of his eyes, fingers hooked through the thing’s gills. One drowner was easy.  
The ground in front of him bubbled and burst open. Two drowners was less easy, and not a fight he needed.  
Aard.  
The power of his sign threw them back and on to the ground. Geralt started running. They would follow. They would chase him. He ran directly away from the river, towards a lone tree where Roach was hitched. She was pawing the ground.  
“I know.” He untied her. “We’re going now.” He got his left foot in the stirrup before she started moving, but only just. He didn’t even have to touch her to tell her to run. The drowner’s head dribbled blood across his leg and her chest. It looked black in the starlight.


	7. Chapter 7

“Can I ask you something?” Jaskier wrote and slid it across the table to Yennefer. They were finishing breakfast.  
“You can ask.”  
“Where did you get such a pair of servants?” An old woman and a lame child.  
Yennefer shook her head. “This isn’t your second song, to be clear.” Jaskier nodded. “I had it in mind to keep two women, hire a man now and then if needed. Ursula offered herself as a housekeeper – been out of work for quite some years, but glowing references and a very reasonable rate – but she stipulated that she be allowed to keep her girl, her ward she said at first. She said she was responsible for the lame child. They kept it from me for… oh, three days? That they were mother and daughter. I told Ursula that I would not employ a liar, and she told me all. Ella’s father was Ursula’s previous master, hence she prefers a woman’s employ, he kept her through her pregnancy hoping for a boy, then threw her out when she gave him a girl with a club foot. Ella’s pay from me is learning to read and write. She’s no hope as a labourer, probably not even as a whore, so we’d better make a scribe of her.” Jaskier nodded. Lame scribes weren’t rare. “I know such things can be fixed by magic, but… I’ve never attempted anything like that, the margin for error is small, and the cost of such magic-” She stopped talking abruptly, looking at her fingers.   
Jaskier stared at her, trying to coax her on. This posture, this was familiar. It was a faint shadow of how she’d looked telling him about Vierful having his wife murdered. So what was this? And how did it link to Vierful? Or did it at all? To correct a physical deformity, did you have to deform someone else? Jaskier knew that sorceresses were physically perfected before they graduated from their schools. Did the sorcery schools have dungeons full of mutilated half-men, made so that the witches could be perfect? Had Yennefer not known that when it had been done to her?

Geralt pushed Roach harder as the sun rose. They’d bolted away from the drowners, then just kept walking through the dark. Geralt had dismounted to let Roach graze and rest a little, saving her speed for daylight. Now he could see their shadows before them, he asked her to run. He was going to ask more of her today than he had done in months. Neither of them had slept. Speed mattered now.  
He slowed her to a walk for half an hour before they reached the village where they’d been stoned two days ago, then pushed her through it at a hard canter. She was starting to lean back on his leg now, she was tiring.  
“I know, Roach.” He said, as she tried to slow down again. “I know. Just a bit further.” He pushed her on.

Jaskier heard hoofbeats on the road outside. He jumped to his feet and ran to the window. Geralt. That was him, and that was his horse. They both looked tired. Geralt was dismounted, Roach’s head was hanging low. Did they have what they needed? There was something tied by Roach’s pannier, but Jaskier couldn’t see what it was, the evening sun cast the house’s shadow across them. He turned away from the window, whistling in short high bursts. He would have shouted for Yennefer if he could have.  
He found her reading a book, one hand contorting without her looking at it. She looked up at him.  
“What?”  
A few possible mimes for ‘Geralt’ flashed through his head, but he settled for just pointing down the stairs towards the door emphatically, and saying what he could of Geralt’s name (just the hard consonants at either end).  
She seemed to get it. She set down her book and followed him down the stairs.  
Geralt was walking away from Roach with her saddle on his arm. Ella was shuffling towards Roach with a bucket of water. He looked up as Yennefer emerged.  
“There.” He slung something towards Yennefer.  
Yennefer caught it with magic, not her hand. As it stilled, Jaskier realised why. That was a drowner’s head, bloody and dripping. Yennefer turned her wrist and it turned in the air.  
“Its glands are intact at least. How long dead?”  
“Couple of hours after dark.”  
“Good enough. I’m going to milk it for acid and burn the rest. It smells worse than you do.”  
“I want the brain.” Geralt said, over his shoulder. He was changing Roach’s bridle for a halter.  
Yennefer gave him a disgusted look. “Why?”  
“Potions.” Geralt replied flatly.  
“Each to his own, I suppose.” Yennefer turned. “Ella.” Ella appeared from the outhouse again. “Draw a bath for The Witcher.”  
Jaskier whistled six notes, a descending minor B scale from five, with a hitch back. Yennefer laughed as she went back inside. Geralt didn’t.

Yennefer’s old woman asked Geralt if he would like to start by using a bucket to get the worst of the grime off his feet, hands, and legs, so that he didn’t then sit in a dirty bath. The bucket was not warm by the time he’d finished with Roach, but it was still warmer than the river had been. The little girl with the bad foot was just finishing filling the bath when he got up there. She ran out before he could shut the door, leaving her bucket. Part of Geralt thought he might not be left alone here. He’d gotten rid of Jaskier; that left Yen. He was too tired to care at that moment. He kicked his feet up onto the far edge of the bath and let himself relax. He was safe here.  
The next thing he was fully aware of was the sound of the door opening. He opened his eyes. Yennefer was closing the door behind herself, her other arm full of cloth.  
“The herbs are macerating in the acid, nothing to do now but wait for moonrise.”  
“Hm.” He closed his eyes again. He knew what she wanted, but he wasn’t minded to just give it to her.  
“Then, hopefully, that leads us to the sorceress.”  
He ignored her. He heard her moving about for a couple of minutes before.  
“Budge.” She grabbed him by the left foot and hip and pushed him sideways. Geralt gave an indignant grunt and caught himself as Yennefer got into the bath next to him. Some defensive reflex made him draw his legs in.   
Now she was here, this close, the idea of it was more appealing, and more appealing than sleep.   
She set her right hand on his belly and spoke a few words.   
Nothing happened. Geralt looked at her hand and back at her face.   
Her gaze told him what she’d been expecting. She sighed. “That’s disappointing. What’s the matter with you?”  
“Magic doesn’t work on Witchers.” He said, feeling a smirk spread across his face. “Try something else.”


	8. Chapter 8

Jaskier stood by the door, waiting, Geralt was close at hand. He could hear Yennefer’s footsteps coming closer. She appeared, holding a small glass jar of clear liquid. Was he going to have to drink that? It didn’t look as horrible as the stuff Geralt took, but that was a low bar.  
Yennefer opened the door and led them outside. “My objective here,” She said. “is to trance. Seeing trances are fragile little things, so do not speak to me until I’ve finished. And don’t touch me. Don’t interact with me at all.” Jaskier nodded. He didn’t know about Yennefer, but he was completely blind at the moment.  
A hand grabbed his arm and pulled him to one side. “Don’t walk into Roach.” That blind.  
“Stand still.” Yennefer said. Jaskier heard her open the jar, then felt her hand on his neck. Her fingers were wet and she was tracing shapes across his skin. She was helping, he reminded himself. “Quiss unaeth fyyn. Quiss unaeth feshyn.” She clasped his neck with both hands. Not a stranglehold, but close enough to one that he had to fight the impulse to push her off. “Quiss unaeth fyyn.” Both of her eyes, and that third spot on her forehead flared bright silver. That was all Jaskier could see. He could hear her mouth and her breath moving, but it wasn’t speech any more.  
Then she fell back, suddenly rigid. She was still sort of speaking. She’d told them not to interfere.

It felt like a long time, just waiting in the dark. Eventually, her eyes and the mark on her forehead began to dim. She just lay panting for a while then.  
“She has a warding shield.” She sat up, grasping at her head. “I don’t know her.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. “She’s young, younger than me. Probably her first posting. It can’t have been that far south of here. That skyline… I‘ve seen it.” She took a couple of breaths. “Brugge. It’s Brugge. That and the myrrh. And the green. So much green. She’s the court mage to Brugge. The fuck is a court mage doing stealing voices?”  
“Ask her.” Geralt suggested, helping Yennefer to her feet. “Can you portal there?”  
“I could if my head would stop spinning.”  
Jaskier couldn’t see enough to write in the dark of the garden, so waited until they were back inside to ask “So what’s the plan?”  
“To Brugge by portal, in the morning.” Yennefer said, sitting down and closing her eyes. She was pale, and was that blood by her ear? Jaskier knew casting spells could do witches a lot of harm, but he’d not seen it up close before. “Find the mage, subdue her, interrogate her, go from there.”

“Neither of you is wanted for anything in Brugge, are you?” Yennefer asked, as Geralt returned from lecturing Ella about taking care of his horse.  
Jaskier thought hard about it for a few seconds. So did Geralt. Wasn’t that telling?  
“No.” Geralt said carefully.  
Jaskier took out his book. “Viscount Worjan of Dillingen might want me dead. If he remembers.”  
Yennefer lifted her eyebrows at the book. “Well, fortunately Brugge doesn’t hold Evens Court, so he’s unlikely to be in Brugge. How long ago was this?”  
Jaskier held up three fingers.  
“Weeks?” Yennefer suggested. “Months? Years?” Jaskier nodded. “Is it worth asking what you did?”  
“Who.” Geralt corrected. That was harsh. But on reflection, probably fair.  
Yennefer drew a breath and lifted her hands. Wind buffeted her hair and her skirt. Something shifted in the air in front of her, and an unfollowable kaleidoscope of colour opened, eight feet across.  
“Go.”  
Geralt dashed forwards, Jaskier followed, not giving himself time to doubt.

The world bucked. Which way was up? Where was the ground? Jaskier stumbled forward into something mostly black.  
As soon as it had started, it passed. Geralt turned, nearly knocking Jaskier over, Jaskier had run into the back of him, and stared at Yennefer as she came through the portal. It collapsed behind her.  
“You get used to that.” She said, brushing her hair out of her eyes.  
“You could have warned us, Yen.”  
Jaskier looked around. They were in an alley between outbuildings in a city. He’d not been to Brugge recently, and he didn’t recognise this spot. But if that was the city wall just peeping through the rooftops there, and the sun was on that side… they were in the South East quarter somewhere.  
“Stay here.” Yennefer said, putting her hood up. “I won’t be long.” She walked away to the West.  
Jaskier perched himself on a barrel. Geralt paced a perimeter, like an animal does in a new place, checking for ways out, then put his back to a wall and stood still.

They waited maybe twenty minutes before an old woman in a hooded cloak rounded the corner.  
“Her name is Natalia of Ebbina.” But that was Yennefer’s voice. As she approached, the lines on her face disappeared and her grey hair darkened to black. Well, that was weird. “She is young, she is the court mage, been in post less than a year. All we need to do is draw her out.” Setting up conversation responses for Geralt was a fool’s game, and Jaskier wasn’t much better right now. “I have a thought. Ask her for help. Appeal to her vanity and validate her as a sorceress. Say something’s foxholed in the plague blocks-”  
“The what?”  
“The plague blocks. Brugge had a vicious bloody flux outbreak two years back, almost all of the dead in a single acre of land, nobody’s dared live there since. And that the creature has set some sort of ward that you can’t pass, so you need a sorceress.”  
Jaskier could see a few ways that that could go horribly wrong. At least one of them had occurred to Geralt.  
“What if she realises it’s a trap? I’m known to go about with him.”  
“She didn’t see you the other night, did she?”  
Geralt thought for a moment, then looked at Jaskier before answering. “No.”  
“So why should she assume it’s that bard and that witcher? Just don’t give her your name.”

Geralt, against his better judgement, was running up to the green-draped gates of the royal house.  
“Hey.” He shouted as he approached. Four guards, either brave or stupid, drew weapons to fend him off. He stopped three paces back from them and showed his empty hands. “I need a sorceress. Quick.”  
“State your name and your business.”  
“Dermot Marranga. Witcher. There’s a vampire in your plague blocks and I can’t get at her. I need a sorceress. Now.” Somebody by the gatehouse started away into the keep. “You run, boy.” Geralt shouted after him. Dermot Marranga had once been a witcher, but was no longer. In this part of the world, it was unlikely anyone had ever heard his name.  
Geralt waited maybe five minutes before a young woman appeared. Flawless, tan skin, dark eyes, sleek, dark brown hair. He breathed for her scent. Myrrh. Yen was clever.  
“Sorceress?”  
“Yes. Witcher?”  
“Come with me.” He turned and started walking. That had been Jaskier’s advice: don’t ask, instruct, and assume she’ll obey.  
“You four, with me.” She said over her shoulder. But she did follow him. “What’s the matter?”  
“Bruxa foxholed in your plague houses. She’s put some sort of ward across the door and I can’t pass it.”  
“Bruxa?” She was almost trotting to keep up with him. His strides were much longer than hers.  
“Do they not teach you bestiary?”  
“I know it’s a vampire!” She snapped. “I’ve just never met one. I didn’t know they could cast.”  
“Most of them can’t.”  
“So why can she?”  
“Don’t know. I’m going to kill her either way.”  
A pause. “What do you want me for?”  
“Breaking through a ward, then you run.” That detail had been Jaskier’s idea.  
“Huh.” She sounded offended. “You want me to break a wall for you, but you don’t think I can handle getting anywhere near the vampire.”  
“You’d be dead in under a minute if she bit you.”  
“And you wouldn’t be?”  
“No.”  
It made perfect sense that this woman had stolen Jaskier’s voice: She wouldn’t shut up. By the time Geralt got to the house, he’d told her most of what a Bruxa could do, in one or two word fragments, and tried to explain the difference between a Bruxa and a High Vampire.  
“Here.” He said, eventually. “She’s in here. Cluster. If she jumps us, she’ll take the man furthest away from the rest.”  
Geralt was surprised when the four guards formed a tight knot around the sorceress. Geralt backed away from the group, drawing a piece of cloth out of his vambrace.  
At that moment, something smoking fell out of an upper window and landed in the middle of the guards. Geralt took a deep breath before the smoke reached him, as the rest of the group began to cough. He saw the sorceress lift her hands, she probably knew this was magical. Holding his breath, Geralt strode back into the smoke. The sorceress was trying to speak against the coughing. The guards were dropping to their knees. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pushed the cloth into her mouth. She tried to scream. He grabbed her wrists in one hand and wrapped his free arm around her waist. Either shock or Yennefer’s magic stopped her from struggling much. Geralt barged the door.  
Yennefer and Jaskier were waiting. He dragged his captive over to them.  
Yennefer put a hand on her head. “Dearme.” The captive went limp.  
That had gone much better than he’d expected.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review.

Jaskier felt strangely towards their captive. Yennefer had portalled them out to a forest somewhere, as soon as Jaskier had confirmed that they had the right mage. She was still unconscious, her wrists were tied behind her and around a young tree. Yennefer was kneeling behind her, holding her bound hands, Geralt was crouched in front of her. She’d stolen his voice, crippled him for no obvious reason, but he was tempted to pity her a little. Her position was pretty unenviable.  
“Ready?” Geralt asked. Yennefer nodded. Geralt pulled the gag from the prisoner’s mouth and slapped her across the face.  
She gasped and jerked. Geralt stepped back and stood over her. For a few seconds, she just sat on the ground, gasping.  
“Who are you?” She demanded of Geralt.  
“Not Dermot Marranga.” Geralt answered.  
She pulled against her bonds. “I am Natalia of Ebbina. I am an Aratuzan sorceress, court mage to Venzlav of Brugge. I demand that you release me at once!”  
“Thank you for giving us so much information up front.” Yennefer said softly, her mouth not six inches from Natalia’s ear. “I think we should start with you thinking carefully about how much trouble you’re in right now. A few minutes ago, you were on home turf with four guards on your side. You’re now alone, you don’t know where you are, your hands are bound, a sorceress is holding them, I will know if you try anything, and there’s a Witcher standing over you. They are exquisitely difficult to charm.” Jaskier almost saw the fight, the hope, drain out of Natalia. “If he can deal with a silver-tongued devil and an army of elves, you shouldn’t be a problem for him, even if you somehow get the better of me.”  
“The White Wolf.” She said softly. Geralt stared dispassionately back at her.  
“Well done. We’re starting to add up.” Yennefer said. “Now, who rides along with The White Wolf?” Jaskier took half a pace closer. “Look to your left if you need a clue.” Natalia looked at him. He saw the pieces connect in her head. Her eyes widened.

“I didn’t know!” She cried. She looked up at Geralt plaintively. “I didn’t know he was yours! You weren’t there.” Jaskier folded his arms. That didn’t excuse anything. She’d known he was a bard. “He just said his companion was in a bad mood. How was I to know?”  
“What did you do?” Geralt asked, as though he was talking to someone very stupid.  
“I needed a voice.”  
“What does anyone need a second voice for?”  
“It wasn’t for me.” Yennefer caught Geralt’s eye. He stopped talking.  
“Let’s go back a little. What exactly did you do to this man?”  
She hesitated. “I lifted his voice. Ollunbo to keep him still, then ‘llais ad lawr, sha’ente neen’.”  
“Wonderful.” Yennefer said. “Isn’t this easy. Where did you put it?”  
Jaskier waved. All three of them looked at him. He took out his book and wrote “You can fix this?”  
“Once Natalia tells us where your voice is, yes.” Yennefer said. “Natalia, what did you do with this man’s voice?”  
There was a silence. “I gave it as payment to another man.”  
“The fuck?” Geralt asked.  
Yennefer just sighed heavily. “Why?”  
“He… I owed him a mighty favour. He asked for a voice, a beautiful voice.”  
Yennefer shook Natalia hard by the wrists. “Court Sorceresses do not trade in favours. All you are belongs to your King. You do not get embroiled in stupid court politics.”  
“He isn’t part of court.”  
“And that makes it acceptable? Who is he?” Natalia didn’t answer. “Who is he?” Yennefer repeated.  
Geralt knelt down in front of her, moving slowly and deliberately, and drew a knife. He turned it slowly in his hand and tested the edge.  
“Answer the question.”  
She didn’t.  
Geralt touched the point of the knife to her belly and laid his other hand flat across the pommel. “If I push, how long will it take you to die?”  
Natalia shook her head, tears welling.  
“I can’t.”  
“Why?” Yennefer asked.  
“He’ll end me.”  
“Do you think Geralt won’t?” Yennefer asked. There was a long silence.  
“Nemo Grey.” Natalia’s eyes were closed. “That was the name he gave me. Nemo Grey.”  
“What does he want the voice for?”  
“He… He said he could use it, in place of his own, that he’d always wanted a beautiful voice. That’s all I know.”  
“How could he be enough of a mage to supplant his own voice but not enough to steal one for himself?”  
“He said he hadn’t much magic of his own, but he could use components if I got them for him.”

Yennefer and Geralt spoke at the same time.  
“That’s nonsense. Tell the truth.”  
“Oh fuck.” Everyone else looked at Geralt. “Did you ever see him handle silver with his bare skin?”  
“I… I don’t know. I don’t think so.”  
Geralt sighed heavily. “Not a man. And not a mage. Your Nemo Grey is a Doppler.”  
“What?”  
“They’re not normally aggressive. I’ve never had to kill one. They can copy the form of anyone they’ve come into contact with. We can probably just talk him into giving us… Jaskier’s voice back. The hard part is going to be finding him.”

Jaskier sort of zoned out about then, as the absurdity of the past few days caught up with him. He, like many fine men before him, had come undone against a sorceress, and she had stolen his voice. Not because she’d wanted his voice, or wanted him not to have his voice, but because she’d wanted to pay someone else off, and that someone had wanted a beautiful voice. That was the worst compliment Jaskier had ever received. Beyond that, the one asking for Jaskier’s voice in the first place was not a human, but a creature that could make itself look like anyone it had ever met. That was a very unsettling thought. Such a creature would make the best performer ever to live, but the idea of someone else in the world singing with his voice… That was beyond creepy.

Geralt and Yennefer were pressing Natalia for where she usually found the creature wearing Jaskier’s voice. Jaskier shook his head and started listening again.  
“So what should we do with you now?” Yennefer asked cooly. “Come back from you when we’ve finished and take you back to Brugge, or send you to Aretuza, so you can go running to Tissaia?”  
There was a very long silence. “Aretuza.”  
Yennefer raised her eyebrows. “Really?”  
“I don’t think I can go back to Brugge now.”  
“What? Because the four guards who were with you fainted at first sign of danger, then you were outnumbered three to one, the three including an Aretuzan sorceress gone wild, and a mutant who’s virtually immune to magic?”  
“Aretuza.” Natalia repeated.  
“Anything else you want to ask her?” Yennefer asked Geralt.  
Geralt shook his head. “We just have to-” He sighed. “find a Doppler in the middle of a city.” And, clearly, that was daunting.

“You two stay.” Yennefer said. “I’m doing this.” The three of them were in a side alley a few dozen paces from The Peacock, the inn where Natalia had said they were likely to find Nemo Grey, the Doppler. Geralt nodded his assent, so did Jaskier. “If all goes well, he’ll never see you.” She said to Geralt. “If he’s reasonable, I’ll just fetch the bard. If he needs holding down, I’ll want you.”  
“Test of silver.” Geralt said. “When I see you next, I will test you by silver. Anyone who’s been alone with a Doppler.”  
Yennefer nodded, and walked away.

Yennefer stepped over the threshold, undoing the top fastening of her dress as she did so. Giving a bartender something to look at other than her face or her hands improved her chances of casting unnoticed. Which might be helpful. This was clearly the expensive place to drink. Everybody in here was clean and dressed in newly dyed cloth, five or six different perfumes assailed her. She sauntered up to the bar.  
“Good sir.” She called to the boy behind it, who was facing away. He turned. “My employer desires to speak with a man who goes by the name of Nemo Grey.” She leaned forwards a touch. “We were told he favours The Peacock. Is he here?”  
No need for even a touch of magic. “I… I think so, miss. M’lady.”  
“Would you be so good as to fetch him for me?” Yennefer purred.  
“Yes m’lady.” And he hadn’t even asked for a reason. He scampered off. Yennefer turned to lean back against the bar and smirked. Easy. Very easy.

He didn’t keep her long. She felt new eyes on her and looked to her right to see a young man.  
“Nemo Grey, I presume?” They looked at each other for a moment. Yennefer supposed that, like an ascendant sorceress, a Doppler can more or less choose his own appearance. And he was beautiful. Unblemished skin, deep brown eyes set in a clean lined face, perfectly shaved, mid brown hair that the sun had bleached to gold in places, his mouth slightly open to reveal even, white teeth. He nodded once.  
“Who asks?” His voice had just the edge of a Temerian flat ‘a’.  
“My name is Zorya. My employer would very much like to speak with you. Walk with me.”

He raised his eyebrows and set a hand at her back. Yennefer returned the gesture and steered him outside, to where Jaskier was waiting. She saw a grey haired man with two swords at his back, apparently urinating against a wall, about twenty paces away. Reassuring, but she really didn’t want him any closer.  
“This is my employer.” Yennefer said. “Julian Alfred Pankratz,” Nemo Grey didn’t seem to find any significance to that. “better known as Jaskier. He’s a bard and poet of some renown, or he was. Currently, he has no voice.”  
“I am sorry for you.” Nemo Grey said, in Jaskier’s voice. Yennefer saw Jaskier’s eyes widen, mercifully that was all he did.  
“It is our understanding that my employer’s voice was stolen by the court sorceress of Brugge and given to you as… payment of some sort, though what you did to end up holding so mighty a debt over her isn’t clear.”  
“Not what I did.” Nemo Grey said, smiling like a child setting a bucket of muck above a door. “What she did, and I knew.” Blackmail. That explained a little.  
“Nor is it particularly pertinent.” Yennefer continued. “The fact of the matter is that the voice you now have, and are at this moment using, was stolen, by trickery and force. As one who has bought stolen goods unwittingly, you are not to blame for that. I ask that you make proper reparation and return the voice to its rightful owner. I am a sorceress of similar kind to Natalia of Ebbina, though, I pride myself, a little more finesse. I believe I can do this in a matter of minutes without any anguish to either of you.”  
There was a silence.  
“Let me see you.”  
For a moment, the bard and the Doppler stared at each other. The Doppler held out his hands, Jaskier took them. Out of the corner of her eye, Yennefer saw the grey haired man turn and start creeping closer. She did not look. She would not encourage the Doppler to. The Doppler put his hands on the sides of Jaskier’s head.  
“I see you.” He said softly. “Your voice is an artist’s tool, you depend upon it. And now it resides in me.” He pushed Jaskier back, so hard that he fell into the wall. “And I like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review. That is my main stimulus to publish


	10. Chapter 10

He bolted on to the main thoroughfare, scattering geese. Geralt was already running, cursing the Doppler and his dam. Yennefer grabbed Jaskier, who looked beyond outraged, by the wrist and followed Geralt in to the crowd. If she used magic, there would be collateral damage. 

Geralt would not, could not, lose sight of the Doppler. If the creature could change his face as quickly as Geralt had been told he could, as soon as he was out of sight it was over.   
The Doppler dashed straight across the main street in to a facing alley. Geralt followed, jumping the barrel the Doppler had thrown over. Round another corner, where was he?   
A dark haired young man was sauntering away, breathing harder than he had any right to be. Geralt stared for a moment before his reasoning caught up. He recognised the man. Jaskier. Jaskier was behind him. Geralt broke in to a sprint. The Jaskier in front of him didn’t realise the danger in time. 

Geralt jumped on the fleeing Doppler and lay on top of him. He heard running footsteps behind as he grappled to stay on top, and holding at least one of his opponent’s hands. He was much heavier than the Doppler was. Yennefer and Jaskier caught up, both winded.   
“Now that was unnecessary.” Yennefer said.  
“You brought a Witcher.” The Doppler spat. “You only bring a Witcher for killing.”  
“If I’d wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.” Geralt panted. “How still do you need him, Yen?”  
“Probably can do it just with you sitting on him. It’ll probably hurt more and I need him face up.” Geralt started turning the winded Doppler over. He seemed to have given up. “Jaskier, come here.” Jaskier approached and knelt down beside Yennefer. “You see, master Grey, we will only use as much force as we need to. If you keep still, I will take only the voice which was stolen, then let you go your way, and tell no one what you are.”  
The creature under Geralt suddenly shifted. It was like the sensation of sitting on a horse as she stood up, or leaning against a mare when foaling cramps hit her. He was looking down at his own face, yellow eyed and scarred. An illusion. An unsettling one, but-  
Geralt’s hand slipped off the Doppler’s right arm. The Doppler had suddenly wrenched himself free. How? He hadn’t been that strong-  
Pain spiked in Geralt’s gut. He yelped and lost his grip on the Doppler’s other arm. He was bleeding. He grabbed for the Doppler and got a kick in the chest, a much stronger kick than Jaskier could have mustered. He heard Yennefer cry out. He was bleeding. He’d been stabbed with a palm knife. His palm knife. He was watching himself flee, complete with two swords on the back.  
“Of course it doesn’t fucking work.” Yennefer said. “Every aspect.”   
Geralt stood. His wound was low enough down that he wasn’t likely to pass out within the hour. He should have been smarter than that. “Do you need him alive?”  
Yen sighed. “Fresh dead would probably do.” Her eyes caught the blood on his hand. “He stabbed you.”  
“I’m fine.” He’d lost sight of himself, the Doppler. By scent, then. He started forwards, breathing deep, feeling the movement play at the wound. It wasn’t bad. 

It was running down hill, to the Northeast. He felt that it was always just out of his line of sight. The scent was very fresh, even if he did nearly lose it once under what was definitely black flux. They were edging in to the plague blocks again.   
The scent led him to a closed door. Geralt stopped in front of it. This felt like a trap. Dopplers were intelligent enough, and somehow this felt like a trap. He drew his silver again and kicked the door hard. The lock was rusted. It swung open maybe a foot and a half, then jerked to a stop. Geralt leaned to look inside as best he could. He saw a shadow. That was all. He could smell him. He had to be just out of sight, with something prepared to do maim Geralt in one hit. A sword or a spear he could block or dodge, but there were other ways to harm a man. Boiling oil crossed his mind.   
He stepped back. He had to be smarter. There was a timber framed window to the right of the door. Half of the panes were missing. He could hear something breathing behind the piece of wall between the two, somewhere he couldn’t see. The window was timber framed, the shutters were hanging open and loose. He probably could. And it ought to catch the other off guard. He downed a Wolverine potion, that side effect he could live with, took two more steps back. He took a deep breath and dashed for the closed window. 

He shattered it, shoulder first, the timber was badly rotten. Before him stood… himself, the Doppler, turning in shock. He had been standing on a chair, sword held high ready to smash down through the guard of whoever first broached the door.  
Geralt grinned at him. “You were prettier before.”  
The Doppler rushed him. Geralt parried and the Doppler drew back, taking a very similar guard position. They waited a long moment.  
“Last chance.” Geralt said. “Put down your sword, let us take back what was stolen, and I will let you go.”  
He saw a smirk cross his face. “You think you can fool a Witcher by talking like one?” Geralt pressed him, hitting hard, giving little thought to defence. He drew blood, the creature screamed and its visage shimmered. The Doppler ran back and got three steps up the narrow staircase, taking a low guard. Geralt chased.  
Movement in the corner of his eye. Yennefer had braved the doorway.   
“Bring him down!” The Doppler shouted.  
“That’s the Doppler!” Geralt shouted back.  
Yennefer swore. The Doppler took another step back, perfect narrow defence. Passing that would be very, very dangerous. Geralt turned to look at her. “And both have black eyes.” Geralt looked back at the Doppler. It had copied even that. Wolverine turned his eyes coal black. The Doppler had copied that.

Then he was on his own. Yennefer wouldn’t help, in case she intervened on the wrong side. He rushed. He pinned the Doppler’s sword in to the wall with his own and crashed up the stairs as fast as he could. It almost worked. The Doppler drew the sword back as he backed away and got himself in to a block by the time he got to the top of the stairs. He kicked a table in to Geralt’s knees. The Doppler was cornered now. Unless he jumped out of a window, there was no escape from here, as long as Geralt kept between him and the stairs. Even if he didn’t, retreating down stairs was a very vulnerable position. 

But it wasn’t easy. Blow for blow, the Doppler had all of Geralt’s strength and all of Geralt’s speed. He’d hoped the Wolverine would give him the edge. Clearly the Doppler followed him there. It could have been minutes or hours they fought, round and round the small landing, over and across abandoned furniture, trampling blood across the floor. After a while, one of them broke through another door which led to a second staircase. The Doppler started up again, using the strong defensive position to catch his breath. 

Aard  
It only bought him a second, but it was enough. In the moment the Doppler staggered, Geralt was on top of him, deep in his guard, forcing him back. They were in eaves now. Surely there was nowhere to run. Every strike the Doppler made, Geralt saw in time to block. Every strike he made, the Doppler saw in time to block. The longer this went on, the more it was like fighting himself in a mirror. The Doppler didn’t just look like him. The Doppler was him. This would end when one of them dropped from exhaustion.


	11. Chapter 11

Yennefer stood half way up the second flight of stairs, thinking hard. What was she supposed to do? She dared not get close to the Doppler, if it coppied her, it could portal, then things got much more complicated. The obvious choice was to thow a sleep spell, or a powerful pacify at both of them, or even try to make them start tearing each others clothes off, then test them both by silver. But both of them were resistant to magic right now. Casting a charm on Geralt had required a lot of time and a lot of close contact. Either was very dangerous right now. The Doppler had picked up Geralt’s resistance to magic. 

Something tapped her hip. She jumped. Jaskier had tapped her with his book.  
“What do we do?”

She was tempted to reply “I don’t know”. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t admit defeat. She had coin on her, test of silver would still work, even if nothing else would. They could just wait: let the fight run its course, test the winner, and hope silver didn’t harm him. But what if it did? Most swordfights she’d seen were much shorter than this, both of them were tiring, but it wouldn’t necessarily be the stronger that won. They were both healing quickly as Witchers did, they were both catching the other’s blade almost all the time. Neither was really bleeding. Silver would work. The problem was getting silver to their skin. She could send the bard, but the Doppler would probably just cut him down. Which would tell her which one was the Doppler, but it defeated the point of the whole exercise if the bard was killed. She needed to immobilise or incapacitate them both somehow while she figured out which was which. 

Magic didn’t need to affect them to do that. It just had to affect something that affected them. Geralt could walk through a portal. They were two stories up. 

It might work. It would hurt him, certainly, but she doubted either of them would die outright, and she could heal Geralt a little if she had to, once she was sure of who he was.  
She snatched the bard’s book and wrote: “Take a silver coin and get downstairs. Test of silver as soon as they’re on the ground.”

She would only have one chance. There was a solid bannister of hard wood at the top of the stair. There was a window out to the front of the building. She waited. She lined up her shot and she waited. She had no idea how long she held her breath until both of them were between the barrier and the window.  
“Diswydre vort.”  
The force of the spell threw her back against the stair. She felt her back slam in to the steps and cried out as her head cracked in to the floor. She grimaced and sat up. Her ears were ringing. They were gone. There was nothing but a jagged hole where the window had been. She had to get down. 

The Witcher staggered upright, eyes black with mutagen, white hair streaked red on one side. He picked up his sword and started forwards, shaking broken glass out of his hair. On the ground before him lay a man, his shorter, darker hair also marked with blood, but this man was stirring. The Witcher turned him over with a foot. The man’s sky blue eyes locked on to the Witcher’s.  
“Geralt.” The man mouthed, though no sound came out. He looked relieved  
The Witcher set a foot on the man’s chest and reversed his grip on the sword.  
The man’s boyish face contorted in alarm and he made to struggle out from under The Witcher’s foot. He shook his head frantically, mouthing at the Witcher to stop.   
The Witcher drove the point of his sword between the man’s ribs. 

At that instant, Geralt saw another man in blue move in the shadow of the doorframe, and stare at him, slack jawed. Geralt stared back, panting.   
“Come here.” He ordered the man in blue. The man in blue approached, he looked afraid. “Give me your hand.” The man did. There was something hard in his palm. Geralt touched the back of the man’s hand to the flat of the silver blade, still pinning the twitching, dying man to the ground. For a long moment, they looked at each other. The visage of the man on the ground began to flicker.

“You’re real, aren’t you?” Geralt asked. Jaskier nodded. “Good.” Something moved in the doorway. Yennefer. “What the fuck was that for?”  
“It worked, didn’t it?” She picked her way over the broken glass and wood. “Gods, they’re ugly in their native form, aren’t they? You see why they steal others. Jaskier, come here.” She knelt down next to the Doppler. Geralt withdrew his sword and put a hand on its chest. Nothing. He stood up, with some difficulty. He’d landed the fall quite well, given how far he’d fallen and how little he’d been expecting it, but he was still bruised to hell and the come-down from Wolverine was unpleasant. He could feel the little twitches starting in his muscles, he’d keep them at bay if he moved. 

So he paced, while he went through his bag for White Honey, and Swallow or White Raffards. Wolverine made him hit harder, but it did not improve his wits. Did he regret killing a Doppler? They were rare and persecuted creatures – there was the White Honey - they usually did no harm. But they’d given this one the choice to cooperate, to give up his stolen goods freely, he’d reacted with violence. Geralt downed the White Honey and waited for the few seconds of intense pain that would follow. Jaskier was lying on his back beside the Doppler, Yennefer kneeling between them, a hand over each of their throats.   
Every breed had its wild ones. Most Queens were cautious, vain wallflowers, and yet Calanthe was. Most magicians were sage and guarded, yet Yennefer was. Witchers were not supposed to – there was the pain. Everything cramped and burned. Three deep breaths, and it passed. He should take Swallow, or he’d be sore for days. Curse Yennefer for blasting him out of a window.

As he put the bottle away, he heard a strangled cry. He turned to see Jaskier sitting up and holding his throat.  
“Transformation is painful.” Yennefer said, drawing back from him. “It was yours to begin with, so it shouldn’t be too bad, but it’s not going to be normal straight away.”  
Jaskier coughed and shook his head. Geralt saw him take a breath. He hummed. The note split and fluked and varied, and sounded like it came from a drunk in a bar, not from Jaskier, but it was there. Yennefer threw her head back in triumph.  
“I’m not the pheasant plucker, I’m the pheasant plucker’s mate.” The last word disappeared under a cough. He was hoarse, he sounded like he was getting through Putrid Throat, but he was speaking. “I’m only plucking pheasants ‘cause the pheasant plucker’s late.”  
Yennefer stood up. “You owe me two songs.”  
“I will sing you one as soon as I’m back with my lute.” Jaskier coughed. He was getting clearer by the minute. Mixed blessing.  
“And you owe me a bucket of reagents, and showing me all your magic.” She said to Geralt.

“Hey!” Geralt turned. Four guards were rushing towards them. Brilliant. “None of you move! Did you see the explosion we heard?”  
Geralt felt Jaskier brush past him, hands outstretched, demanding that they look at him. “Good sirs, you have come too late to witness the epic struggle that played out here.” His voice was thin and rough, but still he held them. “The Witcher tracked this vile beast” He gestured to the Doppler’s body “to its lair in the eaves above, where it held this young lady captive.” He gestured to Yennefer. “The beast knew it could not overcome the Witcher by strength alone, so by its own vile magic, sought to blast him down in to the street. But The Witcher dragged the monster down too as he fell, and struck it through the heart where it lies.” Geralt blinked at Jaskier. The audacity of the man… Yennefer was staring at Jaskier with a carefully blank face.   
One of the guards stepped up to the Doppler’s body and poked it with the butt of his spear.   
“You alright, miss?” One of the guards asked Yennefer, who nodded mutely.  
“All that remains,” Jaskier continued, “is for us to escort this young lady home. Please do lead the way, ma’am.”

Yennefer started walking. As soon as they were fifteen paces away, Jaskier whispered.  
“No marks for acting, mistress. I thought having been a courtier you might do better than that.”  
“You have some nerve.” Yennefer snarled, just as quietly.  
“It worked, didn’t it? Now get us out of here, quick. We’ve probably got minutes before they find out that was two thirds bullshit.”  
“Two thirds? You painted me as a damsel in distress, not the one who fixed you.”  
“Simpler story sticks better.”  
Geralt, behind both of them, smirked. Did he regret killing the Doppler? Not really. Getting Jaskier his voice back? Maybe a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fin.  
> I intend to write more in this universe, but it might be a couple of months

**Author's Note:**

> Please review


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